‘Forgery, breach of trust’: What Delhi Police FIR against Ashneer Grover, wife states

Following complaint by fintech unicorn BharatPe, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police has filed an FIR against former BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover and three family members for alleged Rs 81 crore fraud. The FIR has been registered under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including forgery and cheating, reported PTI.

The three family members are Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain and Shwetank Jain. If convicted, they can face up to anything between 10 years to life imprisonment.

“The complaint was received at EOW and enquiry has been conducted into the allegations levelled against alleged persons. From the contents of the complaint and enquiry conducted so far, prima-facie offences punishable under Sections 406/408/ 409/420/467/468/471/120B IPC (Indian penal code) are made out,” the FIR copy reads.

In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri Jain and destruction of evidence.

Meanwhile, welcoming the decision, BharatPe said, “For the last 15 months, the company has been facing a vicious and malicious campaign run by Grover against the company, the board and its employees.”

“The registration of the FIR is a step in the right direction, which unearths various suspicious transactions made by the family for their personal pecuniary gains,” it said, in a statement.

A timeline of events

BharatPe had filed a criminal complaint in December last year against Grover and his family with the EOW of Delhi Police, alleging fraud of Rs 81.82 crore. The unicorn also filed a civil suit running into 2,800 pages, in December with the Delhi High Court against Grover and his family, seeking up to Rs 88.67 crore in damages for alleged cheating and embezzlement of funds.

It alleged that Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, who was the head of controls at Bharat Pe and was fired earlier in 2022, and other family members created fake bills, enlisted fictitious vendors to provide services to the company and overcharged the company for recruitment.

Later, Ashneer had resigned as the CEO in March last year.

BharatPe, last year, hit the headlines when Grover was accused of using inappropriate language and threatening a Kotak Group employee for failing to secure an allotment and funding for the Nykaa IPO for himself and his wife. Thereafter, BharatPe appointed Alvarez and Marsal, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and PwC to conduct a corporate governance review and determine whether Grover had committed willful misconduct.

This led to the ouster of Jain and Grover from the company and its board in March.